Hot Hands, Cool Night

Saturday night I burned my rusty hand on the rusty grill as I cooked the first hot dogs of the season.

Sunday morning I wisely grabbed a skillet with my bare hand as I attempted the urgent repair of a misfolded omelet.

But Sunday night I went out under the stars with my wife and our son and we watched a gorgeous pass of the International Space Station. Clouds and trees covered more than half the sky so we couldn't see Andromeda, from which the ISS would rise into the sky. So my eyes were on the first large gap of clouds high in the west. My wife saw it first, a diamond point of light much farther north than I'd expected to catch it, low but rising steadily and steadily burning brighter as it crested the meridian. It was a brilliant beacon even beside the bright stars of Orion and still brighter Sirius, even in the glow of the nearly full moon. We kept our eyes on the space station as its own night fell, and it slipped into twilight near Procyon, high above our home. Then we went back inside for bathtime and bedtime, talking about what we'd seen with our little boy. And when he awoke this morning he was still talking about it: the moon, the stars, the dark blue sky.